Years back before I was married, I was a rather ambitious person in terms of work. Then when baby Ryan came along, maternal instinct kicked in and my ambition at work was quickly shifted to an ambition of being a stay-at-home mummy.

Then from wanting to be a stay-at-home mummy, my direction changed again to being a work-from-home mummy. I figured I can’t stay home and just look after the kiddo and do housework. I won’t be happy with that. So working from home was the next best thing and believe me, I’ve been cracking my head hard on this one, thinking how and what I can do to be a work-from-home mum.

That’s when I started toying with the idea of starting a fashion blog shop some 5 months back. I’ve no regrets although it’s a lot of hard work and late nights, because I enjoy doing it. I think I not only lost a lot of sleep over it, I lost some weight too, managing the A to Z of the business. Friends have been asking if I’ve been on diet pills!

But for what it’s worth, I’m truly happy doing this and of course I’m also reaping the rewards of being in business, albeit a very small one. But I believe given more time, and as long as I don’t give up and go after it with the same passion I have, I will continue to do well if not better.

Not long after I started the blog shop, I soon toyed with another business idea. Although this one will take me way out of my comfort zone, I feel that the rewards are too handsome to pass up and if I can just grit my teeth and go for it, there will be no turning back. That’s when I started gaining lots of momentum in motivation as well as some action.

Just very recently I’ve decided to bite the bullet and take the high road. Although it’s what I’ve wanted for a while now, I somehow felt quite insecure about making a life-changing decision before, as I know I will be threading on a path full of uncertainties. At least in the beginning part. But the funny thing is that once I made up my mind to go for it, I didn’t feel fear nor doubt. Instead, I was washed over with a lot of clarity and I honestly felt a huge burden being lifted off my shoulders. And I felt happy and quite frankly, can’t wait to get started!

As I was driving back today, the radio station aired a song I’ve long forgotten as I haven’t been tuning in to the stations for some time. Back in my earlier working years, I loved this song for the lyrics and upbeat tune. Back then when I was all charged up and ambitious, this song was a great motivation for me. When I heard it again today, those feelings came rushing back to me and I genuinely welcome them. I have not felt this motivated for a very, very long time and I’ve almost forgotten what it felt like to have the adrelin rush.

So here’s a song I wish to share with everyone who look up to and decide to do something better for themselves. It’s called It’s My Life by Bon Jovi. I’ve deleted the repeated chorus in several parts of the song because I thought it might be more meaningful to just observe the lyrics. Enjoy.

It’s My Life – Bon Jovi

This ain’t a song for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for the faith-departed
I ain’t gonna be just a face in the crowd
You’re gonna hear my voice
When I shout it out loud

It’s my life
It’s now or never
I ain’t gonna live forever
I just want to live while I’m alive
(It’s my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just wanna live while I’m alive
It’s my life

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow’s getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain’t even lucky
Got to make your own breaks

Better stand tall when they’re calling you out
Don’t bend, don’t break, baby, don’t back down

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

A long forgotten feeling

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The weekend was a very busy one for me but I still managed to spend one-on-one time with Ryan and I’m very glad. We played and laughed, but in between he also caused quite a bit of frustrations in me with some of his demanding behaviour. But I take that all in stride and as part of his Terrible Twos stage although I wish he would quickly get over testing our patience and limits!

Nevertheless it was a great weekend. Ryan had a lot of fun playing with some of his cousins too. We had wanted to set up the inflatable pool for him to play on Sunday morning but it rained so we scrapped the idea and will do it another time.

Monday morning came and I woke up with body aches. I’m not sure why I ached, but very sure it’s not because I’m ill. Maybe it’s just Monday…do you drag your feet when you have to wake up to face work like this polar bear on a Monday?? I do!

And on days when I feel like this, I can’t help but to think how great it would be to be on a vacation. Anywhere will do. Even if you say a break in Penang, I will be gamed. I don’t need expensive and faraway orlando vacations to take away my Monday blues…quite easy to please right?

Anyway, it’s end of the work day now and I look forward to going home and seeing Ryan although I do have to battle the bad jams out there before I get my reward of seeing my beloved son. No pain, no gain, huh?

In any case, I’m quite sure I will wake up refreshed and recharged tomorrow as I look forward to a great week that this will be. I’m actually looking forward to meeting some friends whom I’ve not met for years.

How did your Monday at work go? And for those mummies who are lucky and don’t need to drag their feet to the office, I’m sure your Mondays are much greater than ours! Keep up the good job. I hope to join you mummies soon!

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

Dragging my feet today

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It’s way past midnight and I’m still up and pondering. I met a friend recently and had a long chat over lunch about each other’s lives and catching up on what has happened to each of us thus far. We haven’t met for years, so you can imagine how much there was to update each other, what more with kids in our lives now.

As the conversation went on, we soon touched on very sensitive and private sharing and by the time lunch was over, I felt overwhelmed. Sometimes all you see on the surface is really far from what is happening in reality. It saddened me somewhat to hear some of the updates and we both ended our lunch with a promise to meet again to talk more.

The truth is that after that lunch, it has left me to think a lot about how each of us evolve in life. At one point in our lives, we were carefree and had nothing much to worry about other than passing our exams. At the most, the biggest drama we had was probably what to wear for the final year prom and whether we had a date to go with.

But now that we have grown up and entered the new phases of life being a spouse and a parent, we have a lot more on our plate to worry about than those carefree days of being a student. Sometimes I think I have it tough at work but when I hear other people’s stories of dealing with an impossible boss, family problems, health issues that involve looking for treatments for Mesothelioma, dilemmas on difficult choices to make, suddenly I don’t feel like I have it that bad anymore.

Sometimes it takes other people’s misfortunes to make us realise how good we have it. It’s true, isn’t it? Anyway, I shall not think too much and too deeply about problems of the world that do not belong to me. I’m looking forward to going to bed, to lie next to Ryan and be thankful that he is my beautiful son. That’s enough to put a wide smile on my face.

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

Some midnight thoughts

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Since being a mother, I must admit there wasn’t really much time to unwind. Even after Ryan has gone to bed at night, there are things that I need to quickly get done and before I know it, it’s too late and way past bedtime. Even on weekends, it’s not easy to find the time to sit down, enjoy a hot cup of tea and totally unwind and relax.

My Sunday afternoon yesterday was simply wonderful as I found some time alone to totally unwind, relax and had a good nap! After feeding Ryan his lunch, I had mine and was feeling so sleepy afterwards. The daddy decided to take Ryan out to run some errands and that gave me some time off and to sleep.

So as soon as father and son left, I switched on the air conditioning in the room, took a cold shower, used my very relaxing Sukin foaming facial cleanser, spread on my refreshing Face Shop Raspberry Roots Sleeping Mask and took an afternoon nap. Just before I dozed off, I remember feeling totally relaxed and I loved how cooling my face felt with that mask on. Needless to say, it didn’t take me more than 2 minutes to fall asleep and it was blissful indeed.

I felt just as good as this polar bear lying there on ice!

When my little boy came home to wake me up almost 2 hours later, I was all recharged and fresh. It’s been a long while since I felt so totally at ease and relaxed. Perfect way to unwind on a lazy Sunday afternoon before the rat race begins the day after…

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What a nice way to unwind

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I’m on a break. Well, from work at least. Today is Day-1 and I’ve loved every minute I spent, albeit on my own. It was valueable me-time and I found the day to be a very liberating one as well. Well if you care to read about my day, then read on…otherwise skip this post and read something more useful on this same blog

I didn’t set my alarm clock for the day because I didn’t need to worry about being on time for work. I know little Ryan is my natural alarm clock. Most of the time, he wakes up even before my alarm clock goes off!

So this morning I awoke to Ryan’s voice calling out sweetly “Mummy?”. I looked at the clock and it was just 8am. I continued to laze in bed with Ryan chattering and moving about in the room. When the daddy was ready to go to work, he took Ryan with him to drop him at the babysitter’s. Are you thinking I’m a bad mummy for sending him to the babysitter’s when I have all the time in the world? Well I often feel guilty about it too. Busy Bee keeps telling me it’s okay and that I should learn to enjoy my me-time.

After Ryan and the daddy left, I fetched the papers, saw the headlines about the possibility of increasing the electricity tariff and tossed the papers aside without reading anymore. I fed the cats, washed Ryan’s milk bottles and switched on the notebook. Checked my mails and for orders on my shop and then went to the post office to deliver some orders. It was a half hour wait at the post office but I didn’t mind it at all because I brought along a parenting magazine to read (courtesy of Busy Bee).

And from that magazine, I spotted something interesting called SmartyPig. This is the online version of that piggy bank we keep at home! How interesting, huh? And I thought we only have banking, investment and insurance online accounts, now there’s even such a thing as an online piggy bank! Clever idea!

When I was done settling all that, I decided to go to town to do some survey for about 2 hours. Tired from walking and it was already 2pm, I sat down for lunch. This was the liberating part. I hardly ever sat down alone in a restaurant or cafe to eat. I would always pack my food and eat alone at home rather than in a public place. Even if I had to eat alone in a public place, I’d probably choose a fast food outlet because I get the food immediately, quickly gulp it down and be on my way.

But today, I chose a cafe and sat down to enjoy a main meal of spaghetti in black pepper sauce, a dessert of bubur chacha and a chilled drink of tropical punch! And I took my time to savour my meal, not rushing through like how I would in a fast food outlet. Best of all, for all that yummy food, I paid RM20 and even got some change back!

The other liberating thing that I had done today was listening to a motivational CD by America’s foremost business philosopher, Jim Rohn. I have never listened to audio books nor any of these motivational CDs before. I’ve always wondered if they are effective and I also doubted my own focus and concentration on what these speakers are imparting as I listen to them while driving. But I was surprised that I was actually very absorbed and I found myself nodding along and making sense of the things being said. I also wanted to write down some notes but couldn’t since I was driving!

Anyway, when lunch was over, I visited a bookstore and picked up a Bob The Builder book for Ryan and a parenting book for myself. Headed home after that and once I got home, I wasted no time and powered up the notebook again to check on mails and orders for the day. And then here I am, blogging about the day.

I’m waiting for the better half to be back. He promised Ryan to take him out tonight so we will head out. The only question is “Where to” as we’re always going to the same places nearby the house. But being predictable and routine is not that bad, huh?

So that’s how my day went and I enjoyed every minute of it. I want more of this…I have the next 13 days to go. But that’s still not enough. I want it long term!

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

What a day it has been. I want more!

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